I was just reading the latest post on Rob Mackenzie's blog, Surroundings, and he includes a set list from a reading, in which he mentions having read a poem by another writer, Denis Johnson. It strikes me that it's pretty rare to find a poet doing cover versions, but I don't really know why that should be. You wouldn't want someone to overdo it, but the odd poem seems like a good idea, especially where it connects with the reading poet's own work.
What does everybody think about this, and has anyone else here included cover versions in their set?

I'm running a two-day poetry cafe marathon up here in Warwick during the Warwick Words Festival (Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd October, 11am - 4pm, if you're interested) where poets can come along for an hour - or the whole day! - and read their poems to whoever is about at the time, and I'll be breaking with tradition this year and asking people to read poems by other poets as well as their own work.

This is in order to provide variety and to make the poet feel more at ease (if you're feeling nervous, it's easier to kick off a reading with someone else's poem, I think) but also to ensure that people always have more poems they could read, in case things go quiet!

But yes, it's interesting to think you could read poems in public that have influenced your work at the same time as reading poems that were written under that particular influence. If you see what I mean.

Though if you were influenced by something lengthy - Paradise Lost, for instance - I think a quick snippet would have to suffice, otherwise you'd never get round to your own work ... :lol:

Sounds good, Jane. I'll certainly make it along there on at least one of the days.
Good point about the length of the cover version, though. I think you would always have to stick to pretty short poems.

On the odd occasion I've read a poem by another poet at a reading, and I don't see a problem with it so long as it's just the one poem (and as Jane suggests, not a long 'un). There's no reason not to share your current poetry reading with a receptive crowd, as you might just introduce a few to work they've never come across before, and might well enjoy. However, whether reading a poem by a poet who's a major influence on your work will benefit an audience in the sense of clarifying or illuminating the context in which you write is another matter. Firstly, listening to poetry read is often enough without the added complexity of bearing in mind one poem you've only just heard and comparing it with what you consequently hear (at least for me, anyhow). Secondly, if you're introducing the poem/poet as an influence, there's the pitfall of your poems (this applies to more to beginners) seeming weak/quite derivative in contrast, or, depending on the potentially divisive aspects of your poetry, it seeming like an 'excuse' for the way you write ('well, this great poet wrote in such-and-such a way, so this is why I do it, and if you don't like it, you obviously don't appreciate great poetry'). You might also put some people off your poems simply because they don't much like the influential poet you're praising, when otherwise they would've come to your work with no (OK, less) preconceptions and enjoyed it. Of course, the majority of decent poets used to performing will no doubt be aware of and avoid such pitfalls and some depend on the nature of the audience, but I still think they're worth flagging.

As for me, it's probably of little consequence as I don't have much else to currently say about them, but since you ask, the poems I've read at a reading in the past include Paul Farley's 'Liverpool Disappears for a Billionth of a Second' and the opening poem of Conor O'Callaghan's most recent collection (Fiction). Which, incidentally, I highly recommend, not least because many of the best Gallery Press poets don't seem to get the readerships they deserve over here.

Roddy started a bit of a trend with his FourCast series, which was originally started to raise money for the trust fund for Michael Donaghy's son, Ruairi, after Michael died. Poets were invited to read their own, plus one of Michael's, poems. When he stopped the series (changing the name to BroadCast) he kept up the tradition of reading one poem by another poet.

I think factoring it in to the structure of the event is nice, it makes it less about the individual poet making some statement or potentially seeming a bit self-indulgent, and more just something people do.

It's also a bit humbling, being the person reading someone else's thing: for example, I wanted to read Yeats one time and just NO. The proximity was too great, the comparison too awful. It's funny when you see people starting with - say - a Shakespeare sonnet, then moving on to their own work. You have to be pretty sure of yourself!

Yes, at most BroadCast events, poets are asked to read a 'guest poem'. Some of the more memorable ones are as follows:

Matthew Caley reading a lively bit of Jackson Mac Low
Jen Hadfield singing a section of Tam the Rhymer
Jay Parini reading The Road Not Taken in Frost's voice (having spent a large amount of his time listening to tapes of Frost, as his biographer)
Inua Ellams reading Keats
Brendan Cleary reading the lyrics to Wild Horses - which worked well as a poem!

For a while, I used to read a guest poem too. I've also run the occasional themed poetry night, where people read a mix of their own and others, on a certain subject.

Poems I've read include Project for a Fainting by Shaughnessy, Faces by Rilke, and Jumping by Lasdun. The one which bombed was when I made a stab at Ivor Cutler's Fremsley - out of the context of its author's personality, it just bemused people.

Tim and Niall and I read one of each other's poems when we all read at 14 Hour recently - it was strange to hear them (non-formal poets) reading poems of mine against the form, which didn't feel wrong - just different.

Hearing Peter Porter read Auden's 'The Cave of Making' was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Reading your favourite poems to others is a great pleasure but also a great indulgence, so why not do so at a poetry reading, where a certain amount of goodwill can be assumed?

We've done this occasionally at Buzzwords for open mic - anyone could, of course, read what they wanted to at open mic, but making a feature of it (about once a year) seems to work well.

I don't, except in private to my wife and cat. I do a mean Eliot (that's Prufrock, not anything from Old Possum). When I edited Graham's New Collected Poems I was hoping to get a few invitations to read from them, but it never happened. I'd love to read 'Johann Joachim Quantz's Five Lessons'.

It was the first time I'd ever read someone else's poem at my own reading. I read Denis Johnson's Heat. It did generate a number of gasps from the audience afterwards.

I enjoyed reading it, although I did have that anxiety Katy alludes to, that everyone's going to remember the cover version more than my own material! Interesting to hear the diverse opinions in this thread, some of which hadn't occurred to me.

It's much the same with myself, though I used to read one or two by Fenton, Larkin or Mahon to introduce my readings (back in those days when I was blissfully ignorant of copyright issues).

Now it's generally private, or with a group of tolerantly inebriated friends: Keats' 'Nightingale', Fenton's 'God' poem, or Larkin's 'Aubade'. An exception was a press conference for the launch of 'Irish Writers Against The War' (our equivalent of the Faber anthology). I decided to risk reciting Yeats' 'The Second Coming', which I know by heart. I think it went down pretty well (though I would say that, wouldn't I).

what are the copyright issues around reading someone else's work at a live reading?

Is there a fair use issue? could I use 30 seconds or so and not have to worry about copyright?

Dom

That's an excellent question, Dom. And with most types of writing, I would imagine that it would be a serious breach of copyright. But poetry, although no different in the eyes of the law, does feel less paranoid about such issues, so that reading someone else's poem in public is probably okay as long as you make sure you flag up beforehand that it isn't by you but is by X, and say where people can get hold of that poet's work - i.e. by citing the book where the poem appears.

I can't see that many published poets would get worked up about that sort of informal usage. Obviously if you read someone's poem without making sure everyone knows it's not yours, that's clearly against copyright. Or if you read someone else's poem on the radio, for instance, which is considered a type of publication, i.e. making public, without getting their written permission first, that could also be a problem. Otherwise, I don't see that anyone's going to land themselves in court unless they're unlucky enough to read something by someone a bit possessive and bad-tempered, and that person hears about it and threatens to sue ... all a bit unlikely, really.

But I have had experience of people who are not published or who are self-published getting upset about people using anything of theirs, however obliquely - usually in a slightly insane way, to be honest. I'm sure most people here know a few 'writers' like that. ;)

You need permission, same as you do when printing someone else's work (unless the author has been dead for 70+ years). Of course, few poets are likely to pursue you over this, though there are exceptions. I remember a Dublin street-poet/performer telling me how he met a certain well-known Irish poet and told him that he'd been reciting his work on the street. I guess he expected the man to be flattered. Instead, the response was: 'Where's my fu*king money?' Wendy Cope's response would probably be similar (though more polite I imagine).

Personally, I would be delighted to discover that someone was doing 'covers' of my work. However, if I were going to do such a thing myself these days I would probably try to get permission. Asking for permission is simple, common courtesy, and I think it's a little naive to presume that the 'original artist' will be pleased/flattered. Such presumption is also reminiscent of the awful complacency that sees poetry/poets as strictly small-league, marginal activity, not to be taken seriously or paid real money; after all the poet should be glad, nay, grateful, for ANY crumb of attention! George Szirtes came up against this not so long ago, when invited to give a reading in a chapel and 'donate' his fee.

Anyway, letting a poet know that his/her work is being appreciated/promoted can't be a bad thing.

I've done double-header spoken word sets with another Oxford writer that have included both duets and us covering each other's poems - it's fascinating, both to hear your own poem in someone else'd voice, and to briefly inhabit someone else's poetry (particularly for me and George, as he's American and influenced by Beat poets / experimentalists in a way that I'm not).

I've "covered" a few poems at readings - Michael Donaghy's "Upon a Claude Glass", Louis MacNeice's "Wolves" come to mind. I'm not particularly bothered if someone thinks the cover is the best poem in the set; I'd have to be stupidly egotistical to claim otherwise, however much it's hard to talk about absolutes (particicularly in poetry). But I don't cover to invite comparisons - positive or neagtive - with my own poems. I only usually do covers with more general audiences (ie ones that aren't full of other poets), and I do it to introduce people to poets that I think are worth reading. I think that's part of my task really - to encourage people to engage with poetry in general, not just mine.

That's why I used to do it. Also because reading the poems gave me pleasure.

I'm one of six 'Poet Partners' working with the Scottish Poetry Library's outreach collections to encourage people to read and enjoy poetry. In my case it's with the Elgin collection, and I work throughout Moray in tandem with the public library service. I read a very wide variety of poetry, from the Makars to the Moderns, but I always discuss the poet and the context too, and I show audiences the books where they can read more.
Colin

Sounds like worthwhile and very enjoyable work. I did a small regular poetry slot on RTE for awhile, reading a selection of my favourite out-of-copyright poems (D.H. Lawrence, Whitman, Keats, Shakespeare etc.) which received some good feedback.